F. Palmer Weber Professor of Law
Co-Director, Program in Law and Public ServiceJ.D., New York University School of Law, 2001B.A., University of Wisconsin, 1995

Josh Bowers joined the law faculty in 2008 as an associate professor of law. His primary teaching and research interests are in the areas of criminal law, criminal procedure, criminal justice theory, and constitutional law. Bowers has written numerous articles, essays, and book chapters on police and prosecutorial discretion, plea bargaining, misdemeanor enforcement and adjudication, drug courts, grand juries, and the right to counsel. His work has been published in several books and journals, including the Columbia Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the UCLA Law Review and the Stanford Law Review.

Bowers attended New York University School of Law, where he was a notes editor of the New York University Law Review and graduated Order of the Coif. After law school, he clerked for Judge Dennis Jacobs of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He practiced law as an associate for Morvillo, Abramowitz, Grand, Iason & Silberberg P.C., a boutique white-collar criminal defense firm, and also as a staff attorney for the Bronx Defenders, a community-based public defender organization. From 2006-2008, he was a Bigelow Fellow at the University of Chicago Law School.

"The Integrity of the Game Is Everything: Geographic Disparity in Three Strikes," 76 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 1164 (2001) (note).HeinOnline (PDF)

Presentations and Testimony:

“Equitable Discretion as a Rule of Law,” Public Law & Legal Theory Workshop, University of Chicago Law School, April 2012.
“Equitable Discretion as a Rule of Law,” Faculty Enrichment Workshop, Florida State University College of Law, March 2012.

"The Normative Case for Normative Grand Juries," Community Prosecution & Community Defense," Wake Forest University School of Law, November 2011.
"Beyond Immigration: Litigating Expansions of Padilla," Padilla and the Future of the Defense Function, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, June 2011.

"Is Political Retributivism a Retributive Theory?," Retributive Justice and the Demands of Democratic Citizenship, University of Virginia School of Law, April 2011.
"Life Without Parole and the Death of Equitable Discretion," Life Without Parole as the New Death Penalty, Amherst College, December 2010.

"Legal Guilt, Normative Innocence, and the Equitable Decision Not to Prosecute," Student Scholarly Lunch, University of Virginia School of Law, March 2010.

"Legal Guilt, Normative Innocence, and the Equitable Decision Not to Prosecute," Faculty Workshop Series, Michigan State University College of Law, March 2010.

"Legal Guilt, Normative Innocence, and the Equitable Decision Not to Prosecute," Faculty Workshop Series, Stanford University School of Law, April 2010.